Anorexic: a Glose

"How she meshed my head in the half-truths of her fevers till I renounced milk and honey and the taste of lunch.” - ‘Anorexic’, Eavan Boland The pervasive pain of hunger fastens my mind to flesh and blood. Mindful, aware of each moment, success in the heart’s slowing thud. How she meshed my head. She’s there in the space between thoughts and then she speaks the thoughts herself. She’s me but not me, voicing fears and hidden threats, praising my health. In the half-truths? I could sense myself, an echo mirrored in hatred and discord. She was my safety, my comfort, yet I feared the double-edged sword of her fevers. She whispered paradoxes, rules that restrained my spiralling thoughts with dialectics of control, structured security of sorts till I renounced the chaos of my former life, distilled through her inverted love. Angles of detachment, senses keen with hunger, nightmare dreams of milk and honey. I didn’t set out to lose. Just knew that I didn’t want to gain. My fears numbed in her cold embrace, emotions faded, as did pain and the taste of lunch.